Christmas Through the Years
by zebralily999
Summary: Every year, as the turtles grew up and matured, they saw Christmas differently and their understanding of it changed greatly over time. This is a story detailing the Hamato family Christmases as they grew older, from five-years-old to fifteen. The story is better than the description, I hope.
1. Chapter 1

**I am proud of the work I have done on this story (which will have 2 more chapters, by the way) but I apologize for it not being up to par with my other work. I had the idea for this story and worked on it for nearly a month, but countless rewrites and a lack of time to work on it have taken their toll. Only a few days did I have the chance to write this version of the story, because it had taken me so long to get the gist of what I wanted it to be. I swear, there are at least 6 other versions of this and it is one of the hardest fan-fictions I have written. But enough excuses. Love it, hate it, this is my Christmas story. All this month I had envisioned something similar to this story, and I don't think I could have put it to words any better than I did. And I had to upload this chapter today, completely finished editing or not, because if I didn't there was no way I'd finish this story before Christmas. **

**So, merry Christmas! And I hope this story makes you smile!**

* * *

Leonardo trumped slowly along the sewer tunnels, his skateboard hefted across his back bouncing with every step. He only watched his feet as he walked, hopelessly trying to dim the angry thoughts inside his head. His whole body shook from the cold; the blue, scrappy scarf wrapped around his neck that nearly stretched to the floor did barely any good.

The small, five-year-old turtle could barely remember what he was mad about. Something that had to do with his brother, Raphael. But, frankly, Leonardo couldn't remember what exactly that had happened that had gotten him so angry. After it had happened he had stomped out in the sewer tunnels and had wandered around for nearly two hours. He knew perfectly fine where he was and how to get home, but he just didn't want to go back at the moment. Leonardo may have forgotten what had happened as his brain had wandered to more important things-like whether his brother, Donatello, had finished fixing the television that had been broken for a week-but the anger was still there.

"I hope I get lost and starve to death in here," Leonardo mumbled to himself. "Then maybe Raphael won't be so mean!" Or was what Raphael did an accident? He still couldn't recall, and not in the least bit did he wish to die, but it felt good to vent his anger.

He could hear sounds above him, sounds of the place called New York City. From what he'd garnered from his new television, his father's stories, and the sounds he heard whenever he was in the quiet sewers, Leonardo had deducted that the humans up above were strange creatures. Good strange, or bad strange? He wasn't quite sure yet. But sometimes Leonardo would hear bad sounds up there, too, especially during the late afternoons when Splinter would give them permission to skateboard nearby. Sounds like people yelling and stealing. Sometimes he would even hear people yelling for help, shouting for the hero Leonardo had been training to be for as long as he could remember. The small turtle occasionally daydreamed about going up there someday and getting rid of all the bad people.

However, today most of what he heard was happy. A strange song, singing "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer..." rang out loud and clear. Bells jingled and there was considerably less yelling. The word "Christmas"-or at least that's what it sounded like-was traded around more up there than playful insults between Michelangelo and Raphael down here. Leonardo, curious, halted in his haughty walk and stopped to listen. What was Christmas?

"And what would you like for Christmas, little girl?" said a cheery voice. Leonardo couldn't help imagining someone as kind and loving as his father when he heard this voice. Leonardo felt the anger from earlier seeping away and found himself standing there longer to listen for the little girl's reply.

"A big, red sled! And a doggie. And don't forget the dragon! I ask for that every year and it never comes! Not ever..." The girl's voice trailed off, with a woman, probably the child's mother, appeared, telling the girl to come with her. Leonardo wondered why the girl had asked the man for so many impossible gifts in the first place.

Another child came up to the man, giggling happily loud enough for the turtle in the tunnels below his feet to hear, and Leonardo heard the man ask once again,"And what would you like for Christmas?"

Leonardo leaned against the wall of the sewer tunnel, entranced. Seconds turned to minutes, speeding by like Michelangelo on his skateboard. Leonardo didn't know how long he stayed there, listening to children bear Christmas wishes, and soon he had slid down the wall of the tunnel and now sat content on the floor. He had completely lost himself and more than anything did he wish to be up there now, talking to this "Santa".

The little turtle was still cold. He had hastily wrapped his scarf around as much of his body as he could but was still freezing. But not in the least did he mind. Leonardo assumed he would be home by now if he hadn't stopped to listen to the Christmas wishes. Whatever Christmas was...

* * *

"Leo!" Raphael shouted. There was no reply, only a ringing echo that ran down the length of the sewer tunnel. The little turtle groaned and rubbed his head like he had a huge headache. He had been walking around for an _hour_ looking for his brother with Splinter, Michelangelo, and Donatello. "Leo, come out! I'm sorry for...whatever I did!"

Donatello sighed. He wrapped his small scarf tighter around his neck and glared at Raphael. If it wasn't for Raphael, they wouldn't have been out here looking for Leonardo. Why couldn't those two just get along? Donatello daydreamed about being back in the Lair, elbow-deep in wires and metal as he fixed his family's new television set that hadn't worked since the third day since they had found it. It was the first big piece of technology they had and Donatello had been excited to try and fix it when it had broken. Frankly, he liked it better broken than when it was working, because then Michelangelo would watch the most annoying cartoons but when broken he could use it to sharpen his skills. Sadly, they still had yet to find Leonardo and so the three brothers and their father continued to wander the tunnels.

* * *

Leonardo listened hard to the children as they burst out with Christmas wishes to Santa. He couldn't hear every word since it was loud up there and Leonardo was so far away, but he heard kids wish for dolls, comic books, huge video game systems, and lots of impossible things, like rockets, dragons, and a million dollars. It was all very confusing to little Leonardo. How could the friendly man they called Santa get all those kids that stuff?

"And I want a toy dinosaur that roars and walks...and a bike!" squeaked a little kid.

Leonardo barely noticed as it got colder and less and less often was Santa talking to a little child (it seemed the crowd of children up there was thinning). But Leonardo stayed there a little longer, entranced with curiosity and wonder.

"And what would you like for Christmas, little boy?" asked Santa one more time.

Leonardo strained to hear the kid's reply but instead his ears picked up something else.

"Leonardo! Leonardo!" shouted a light, squeaky voice. "Where are you? Come out, come out, wherever you are!"

The little turtle stiffened. That had been Michelangelo shouting for him. Far off, but he could hear his brother getting closer and closer. Then Donatello yelled,"Leo! Hurry up and come out!" Leonardo's whole family was looking for him.

"Yo, Leo! Come out! It's cold and I want to go home!" And, of course, there was Raphael's call.

Leonardo stood up frantically. He bit his lip, looking up at the ceiling of the sewer tunnel, where he could hear Santa's voice. Would Leonardo ever be able to find this place again if he had to go home with his family now? There were so many sewer tunnels and Leonardo had been only vaguely paying attention to where he had been going when he had found this place. Would the voices go away after a while?.

Now he could hear the echoing footsteps of his father and brothers approaching. The little turtle fiddled with his scarf nervously, not wanting to go. He didn't want to tell his family about this Santa place,either. In some odd way, Leonardo felt like it was his and his only and didn't want to tell them.

"And what would you like for Christmas, little boy?" asked Santa once again. Leonardo looked frantically between the ceiling and the shadows of his brothers playing against the wall, close enough that they would soon see him standing there.

Just then, the little turtle had an idea. It wasn't much of one, not like the genius ideas his brother Donatello could come up with on the spot, but nevertheless he was proud of it.

The little turtle bent down and looked up, hardly listening to the child's distant reply to Santa's question. Leonardo shut his eyes tight and made a wish,"Santa, I want a katana, a real one. Not the wooden ones father makes us use for practice right now." Not a normal five-year-old's request.

Leonardo opened one eye to see his brother Raphael standing at the end of the tunnel, only beginning to comprehend that his brother was there. Leonardo opened his other eye in shock and fiddled with his scarf, waving nervously to his brother. The hot-headed child blinked, realizing his brother was there, and shouted,"Hey, Leo's here!" and pointed down the tunnel. Soon, the sounds of rushing feet began to echo throughout the sewers.

Leonardo looked back up to the ceiling. He quietly whispered, just for himself to hear,"And maybe one of those toy robots that can walk, like the ones I saw on commercials before our TV broke. But mostly, I just want the sword."

He looked back down just before his brother Michelangelo came pummeling into him, wrapping his arms around him in a bear hug. "Missed you!" Splinter ran up and pulled Leonardo toward him. He looked somewhat angry but the little turtle could see a worried, frantic look in his eyes.

"My son, promise you shall never run off like that again," Splinter scolded,"You could have gotten hurt or lost." He may be training his four sons to be ninjas, masters of deadly weapons, combat, and stealth, but at his heart he was truly a very protective father who never wanted to see his sons hurt.

"I promise," Leonardo said, nodding seriously. His father took his hand and together the family began to make their way back toward the Lair. Though, as they rounded the corner, Leonardo looked behind him and made a silent note to himself that he would come back to this place. He had to know what Christmas was. And he wondered if this Santa guy could pull it off and give every child that asked him for something what they wanted, even the five-year-old mutant turtle that lived in the sewers that had asked for a sword.

Leonardo never had the chance to come back to the special place in the tunnels again and quickly forgot where it was.


	2. Chapter 2

**I apologize so much for not finishing this on Christmas or before. I published the story too late to finish it on time and yesterday my computer was a scrooge and I couldn't upload this finished chapter. **

**But I do love this chapter. It had gotten away from me, being so fun to write, that it became twice the length I had envisioned it. Since this part of the story became so long, I'll make this fan-fiction four chapters now. Just consider this story a late Christmas present!**

* * *

As days passed by, Leonardo still didn't tell his family about the special place in the sewers where he could hear Santa. He thought about it nearly every minute of every day, but strained to remember where in the sewers the place had been. How many turns had he taken to get there? Which way had he gone? He couldn't remember at all, sadly. But he dreamed about Santa and Christmas, and hoped he would get the katana he had asked for.

Something very exciting happened on December twentieth-Leonardo believed he would remember it the rest of his life-when Donatello finally managed to fix their new television. It had been broken since the third day they'd had it, and once the static-filled signal had finally came in, the four young brothers rejoiced, cheering and giving high-threes as if they had been the ones doing all the hard work.

Donatello inwardly sighed once he had heard the television come on. He had hoped he could have kept working on it a few more days, stalling its repair as he sharpened his mechanical skills, but Michelangelo had been becoming pushy about him getting it done. Still, he wondered if he could pursuade his brothers to find a good program on now, like a decent cartoon or a science documentary, and quickly walked around to the screen, brushing the grime off of his hands as he went.

Once the cheering had subsided, the brothers sat down to watch the television. It was still set on the kids' channel that Michelangelo had been watching when it had broken (only Raphael and Michelangelo had been in the room when it had broken and Donatello and Leonardo believed that it had not been the random technical difficulty the red- and orange-masked brothers had claimed it had been that had destroyed the TV, but rather that the electronic had been the poor victim of a prank, accident, or one of Raphael's anger tantrums).

Donatello begged his brothers to go to a better channel than this one that specialized in strange Saturday-morning nonsense, but Michelangelo held the remote high and Raphael held his brainiac brother away. As the static on the screen cleared, the first image the turtles saw was that of a fat old man, with a long white beard and long red robes, riding in a sleigh with a huge sack on the back and a few strange flying animals at front.

At first, they all thought they were hallucinating. Donatello began to stammer in surprise, stating all the ways that this jolly bearded man defied science, until Michelangelo shushed him and reminded him it was a cartoon.

"Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!" shouted the man. The screen faded to black and credits began to roll down the screen too fast to read. Michelangelo whined loudly that it was over before he had even begun to understand what was going on in the program.

"Christmas?" Leonardo mumbled in confusion, remembering the word from the Santa who had been asking kids for presents, the normal human tradition he had spied upon. He wished the cartoon hadn't ended so could get some answers. Just then, a commercial popped onto the screen.

The commercial practically shouted,"Hey kids, what do you want for Christmas?" so loud that it startled Michelangelo and he dropped the remote. As Raphael and Donatello began to wrestle over it, the commercial continued. It showed two human children in black and white, who said,"I want a doll" and "I want a dog!" before the narrator voice shouted "No! You want the Ultra-Mega Narf Dart Blaster Plus!"

Michelangelo's eyes widened. "I want the Ultra-Mega Narf Dart Blaster Plus for Christmas!" Then he caught himself. "What's Christmas?"

Leonardo sighed. "Mikey, they haven't even shown to the toy yet!" he said in his usual leader-sounding voice. Michelangelo stuck his tongue out at him and continued to watch with his brother, ignoring the sounds of the struggle over the remote at his feet.

Then the toy gun came onto the screen. It was a blur of all the colors of the rainbow, and at first Leonardo thought he was seeing a strange colorful painting akin to what Michelangelo would do whenever he got ahold of art supplies. Then he realized it was the toy.

Michelangelo's eyes so big they looked like they were close to popping out of his head. His whole body was bathed in the rainbow light of the screen, still displaying the toy proudly. "I _love _Christmas!"

It was then that Donatello managed to finally tug the remote free of Raphael's steel grip with one hefty tug and changed the channel. Michelangelo groaned loudly as his new favorite toy became an a scientist talking techno-babble about robot construction. Donatello cheered, but his shout was drowned out by the loud sound of Splinter's door opening and his footsteps down the hall. All the turtles froze. The scene of Donatello holding Raphael back with his foot, Leonardo in a corner in a mixed state of confusion and discontent, and Michelangelo looking as if everything he loved had just been torn away from him was not a good thing for their father to walk into.

As soon as Splinter walked into the Lair, the turtles came back to the present and quickly rearranged themselves in a practiced routine, so the scene did not look strange at all. And that's when Michelangelo looked up at his confused father, smiling big, and asked,"Hi, Dad. What's Christmas?"

And that was the day that Leonardo finally got the answers to his questions. Sort of, as his father was hard to hear over his brothers' continuous cries of awe as giftgiving, togetherness, caring, and, most importantly, giftgiving, were explained to them. Frankly, Leonardo only heard half of what Christmas was. Giftgiving. And Michelangelo made sure Leonardo knew by repeating Splinter's exact words about the tradition of passing out gifts on Christmas over fifty times throughout the day. Donatello had made it a game of counting how many times Michelangelo said "It is when families and friends get together and give eachother appreciative gifts" and got to eight-five times.

At the end of the day, Splinter rubbed his temples, trying to get rid of the huge headache he'd had (anyone would have a headache after a five-year-old Michelangelo had been explaining the tradition of giving gifts to them for nearly an hour) and said,"I was planning on telling you all, my sons, about Christmas tomorrow, but I suppose I got ahead of myself. As a surprise, I would like to tell you all that we are celebrating Christmas this year."

Michelangelo and his brothers practically exploded with joy. But Splinter grabbed Michelangelo's shoulders, and with all the sadness in the world, he said,"But, my sons, remember: we are mutants living in a sewer. Don't expect an Ultra-Mega Narf Dart Blaster Plus."

"How about a katana?" Leonardo asked.

Splinter sighed. "Maybe when you're older, my son. Currently, a katana is far too dangerous for you. I still recommend you practice with wooden replicas."

"Yeah!" Raphael said smartly, sneering at Leonardo. "You'll cut your eye out!"


End file.
